System and method for selling time-based inventory

ABSTRACT

A method for selling time-based inventory over a communications network includes permitting a seller via a graphical user interface to define a total time to be sold for a time based-inventory; permitting the seller via the graphical user interface to define a sales time interval amount smaller than the total time to be sold; dividing the total time as a function of the sales time interval amount so as to define a plurality of time intervals of the total time; and selling the plurality of time intervals via the communications network.

This is a Divisional of and claims the benefit of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/710,117, filed Feb. 23, 2007 and further claimsthe benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/799,998 filed May 12,2006, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/850,167 filed Oct. 5,2006, the disclosures of all of which are hereby incorporated byreference herein.

The present invention relates to a method and system for permittingtime-based inventory to be sold.

BACKGROUND

Time-based inventory (“tbi”) is defined herein as a plurality of timequantities offered for sale with a fixed start time and a fixedexpiration time, the time quantity being associated with a right and thetime quantity being valueless or expiring after the fixed expirationtime. Such inventory may include for example: (1) a time quantity for alocation, such as a stadium, tennis court or seat; (2) a time quantityfor use of a good, such as a car or restaurant; or (3) a time quantityfor use of a service, such as radio broadcast time or cleaning services.Advertising intervals on radio or TV thus fall within the definition oftime-based inventory.

Selling of such time-based inventory traditionally has been accomplishedby scheduling and offering such time-based inventory based on predefinedschedules.

Auction platforms for goods and services are well known. E-Bay forexample permits sellers to auction off goods and services, as well astime-based inventory. A seller for example can auction off a basketballcourt time interval from 10:00 am to 11:00 on a Saturday on E-Bay. A TVadvertising interval for the Super Bowl for example may be auctioned offor sold on E-Bay.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a method for selling time-based inventoryover a communications network comprising:

permitting a seller via a graphical user interface to define a totaltime to be sold for a time based-inventory;

permitting the seller via the graphical user interface to define a salestime interval amount smaller than the total time to be sold;

dividing the total time as a function of the sales time interval amountso as to define a plurality of time intervals of the total time; and

offering to sell the plurality of time intervals via the communicationsnetwork.

The present invention also provides a system for selling time-basedinventory comprising: a server receiving instructions from a seller oftime-based inventory to set a total time to be sold for a time-basedinventory, the server also receiving further instructions from theseller to set a sales time interval smaller than the total time to besold, the server determining a plurality of time intervals of the totaltime as a function of the sales time interval; the server permittingdisplay of the plurality of time intervals to a plurality of potentialbuyers of the time-based inventory.

The present invention also provides a method for selling time-basedinventory over a communications network comprising:

permitting a seller via a graphical user interface to define a totaltime to be sold for a time based-inventory;

permitting a plurality of potential buyers to define a sales timeinterval amount smaller than or equal to the total time to be sold andto submit offer prices associated with the sales time interval; and

maximizing a value for the total time to be sold as a function of thesubmitted offer prices.

The present invention also provides a system for selling time-basedinventory comprising a server receiving instructions from a seller oftime-based inventory to set a total time to be sold for a time-basedinventory, the server also receiving further instructions from aplurality of potential buyers to define a sales time interval smallerthan or equal to the total time to be sold and to submit offer pricesassociated with the sales time interval, the server maximizing a valuefor the total time to be sold as a function of the submitted offerprices.

The present invention also provides a time-based inventory sellingsystem comprising a server providing an interface for a plurality ofsellers of time-based inventory, the server permitting a first of theplurality of sellers to define first time intervals of a firsttime-based inventory and permitting a second of the plurality of sellersto define second time intervals of a second time-based inventory.

The present invention also provides a graphical user interfacecomprising a display permitting a seller of time-based inventory to seta total time to be sold, and to choose at least one time interval, asale of the time-based inventory capable of being conducted as afunction of the time interval and the total time to be sold.

The present invention also provide a graphical user interface comprisinga display permitting a seller of time-based inventory to set a totaltime to be sold, and a further display permitting a potential buyer todefine a time interval smaller than or equal to the total time to besold and to submit a bid for the time interval.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a first graphical user interface for a seller to define atime-based inventory time to be sold;

FIG. 2 shows a representation displayed to the seller when the intervalto be sold has been defined;

FIG. 3 shows a further screen shown to a seller to define the intervalsto be sold for the time to be sold, or to permit automatic optimization;

FIG. 4 shows an overview of one embodiment of the system of the presentinvention;

FIG. 5 shows a representation of a marketplace for a plurality ofsellers of tbi created with the present invention;

FIG. 6 shows a screen for a potential buyer to use in the automaticoptimization embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 shows a flow chart for automatic optimization of a time-basedinventory to be sold;

FIG. 8 shows a representation of the tbi sold via both duration andconsumtion criteria; and

FIG. 9 shows a representation of rules applied to the time-basedinventory being sold.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Presently known selling methods and systems for time-based inventory aredifficult to manage and do not easily permit the optimization of valuefor selling of such inventory.

The present invention advantageously provides for selling tbi in anefficient and effective manner. In addition, value can be maximized viaan automatic optimization process.

FIG. 1 shows a first graphical user interface 10 for a seller to definea time-based inventory time to be sold. A seller 22, for example asshown in FIG. 4, can receive a web page on a client 18, such as apersonal computer or handheld device, over a communications network 20,such as an IP-based communications network such as the Internet, via aserver 30.

The seller 22 can enter in a tbi begin date and end date, so as todefine a set interval for sale. For example, the seller advantageouslymay be offered a start calendar 12 and an end calendar 14. Theresolution of the beginning and ending time selectable by buyers may beset by the seller for a particular application, for example down to afifteen second resolution as shown, for example for advertising spots.For tennis court applications for example the resolution may be set at ahalf hour or an hour.

As shown in FIG. 2, the seller can be provided a graphicalrepresentation 40 of the tbi once these dates have been entered,preferably in the form of a timeline.

FIG. 3 shows a further web page 40 which permits the seller to choosebetween two embodiments of the present invention: (a) selling the tbiusing seller defined time intervals, or (b) permitting buyers to definethe time intervals desired.

In a location 42, the seller can choose the resolution R of the timeintervals to be sold for the total time to be sold (the resolution Rtypically being smaller or equal to than the resolution provided for thebeginning and end times in FIG. 1). For example, 10 second, 15 minute or2 hour intervals can be selected to divide the timeline and define thetime intervals. If total time T divided by R is not an integral number,the left over time smaller than the resolution R at the end of thetimeline may be discarded or sold separately as a smaller time interval.For example, if the total time to be sold is ten minutes, and aresolution R of three minutes is selected, three three minute intervalsand one one minute interval may be defined for sale.

The seller may also in this web page or another web page provide adescription of the right being sold at location 46, for example tenniscourt time for a tennis court located at 85^(th) and Amsterdam in NewYork City. This is for use in describing the right to the buyer.

However, predefined descriptions could also be provided, for example, tocreate a marketplace for standardized auctions or selling of similargoods. The sellers for example may choose tennis courts in the 10024 ZipCode, so that buyers would not necessarily know which exact tennis courtwas being offered. Such tbi marketplaces preferably are located on acentralized website, for example called rbidr.com. However, they may bea standalone website as well, called for example 10024tennis. This alsothus describes the right to the buyer.

However, it is understood that the tbi to be sold is always inventory,and thus in the possession of the seller, so that the seller is neverselling a right which does not yet exist or which the seller does notown. For example, if someone were selling time for a particularbasketball court on West 85^(th) Street and Amsterdam and did not havethe right to the basketball court yet, but rather maybe only anexpectation of getting the right in the future, that seller would not beselling time-based inventory. Thus a seller of tennis courts in the10024 zip code will have the actual right to times on various tenniscourts, and will sell that inventory (even if the buyer may not knowexactly for which court time is being purchased).

FIG. 3 also shows that the server 30 can provide a graphicalrepresentation of the timeline 40 of FIG. 2 with the intervals selected.

If the timeline is used with buyer-defined bids the seller can click onsection 44, which will be described hereafter with respect to FIG. 8.This can permit the seller to use a maximization method of the presentinvention.

Once the seller has defined the total time to be sold and divided thetimeline, a graphical user interface can be provided for buyers to beginpurchasing the time, as will be described.

FIG. 4 shows an overview of one embodiment of the system of the presentinvention, in which a plurality of sellers 22, 122, with clients 18,118, and a plurality of potential tbi buyers 52, 54 with clients 152,154 can access the central server 30 via the communications network 20.

As shown in FIG. 5 this can permit the formation of a marketplace 60 oftbi, for example tennis courts in zip code 10024, sold by a plurality ofsellers 22, 122, . . . , which can be displayed graphically on a websitesuch as the centralized website. For example the arrows can indicatewhich times are already sold, and a potential buyer 52, 252 can accessthe marketplace and seek to purchase the unsold time intervals.

The price for a time interval can be set by the seller, by the buyer inan auction, or a combination of both. Thus each time interval could showa cost set by the seller when the buyer clicks on the time interval tobuy. The seller can set the price for each interval, for example afterthe step shown in FIG. 3.

In a preferable embodiment, the marketplace is an auction, so thatpotential buyers can submit bids for the time intervals. Thus, thearrows in FIG. 5 could just indicate which intervals already have bids,and the non-arrowed portions could be intervals where no bids have beensubmitted. The buyers thus can submit further bids for the timeintervals where bids have already been received.

The auction can close a specific time, so that for example an auctionfor time intervals for Jan. 20, 2007 can close a week earlier atmidnight Jan. 13, 2007.

In another preferable separate auction embodiment of the presentinvention, a seller can leave the tbi un-intervaled, so that thepotential buyers can define and bid on time intervals and the server 30can optimize the value, for example monetary value, to the seller.

FIG. 6 shows a screen for a potential buyer to use in the automaticoptimization, i.e., maximization embodiment of the present invention.The buyer can choose the amount of time to be bought from the totaltime, so that the times are within the total time. The potential buyerenters in a start time and end time for the bid, and a price.

FIG. 7 shows a flow chart for automatic optimization of a time-basedinventory to be sold.

In step 301, the seller defines the timeline, for example as withrespect to FIGS. 1 and 2 above. The seller can also set weightedselection criteria, such as seeking to maximize monetary value, or someother value. A potential buyer in step 302 then can define a time withinthe timeline (for example using a calendar) and submit a bid, by givinga weight to the time selected, for example a monetary value. The bidswhich are in line to be accepted when the auction closes at a time setby the seller are called optimum bids, and define an optimum bidcombination. Active bids which however are not optimum bids at thepresent however are kept in reserve, as they may become optimum bids asnew bids are presented.

In step 303, if the time range for the bid does not overlap with anyother bids, the bid becomes an optimum bid and is added to the optimumbid combination in step 304.

If the time range of the bid does overlap with other optimum bids instep 303, the server is queried in step 305 if the remainingnon-overlapping bids+the submitted bid+any other active bids which wouldthem fit into the timeintervals which do not overlap with the submittedbid or each other is greater than the existing optimum bid combination.If so the program causes the new combination to replace the existingoptimum bid combination in step 307. If the submitted bid results in anequal value to the existing optimum bid combination, the bid may not beaccepted in step 306 to give first bidders an advantage. In step 311,the optimum bids are finalized.

As a simple example, rbidr.com, a centralized website, is selling tenhours of tennis space on Tuesday from noon to 5 pm at West 85^(th)Street and Amsterdam, and uses the optimization software of the presentinvention. The auction closes at Monday noon. On Sunday, bidder1 bidsten dollars for noon to 2 pm, and this becomes an optimum bid. Bidder 2bids 20 dollars for 1 pm to 3 pm, and this replaces the bidder1 bid tobecome the optimum bid. The bidder1 bid becomes active. Bidder 3 bids 10dollars for 3 pm to 5 pm, and the bidder1 and bidder3 bids do notoverlap and become the new optimum bid combination. Bidder4 then bids 25dollars for the time interval from 2 pm to 4 pm. Since thebidder1+bidder4 combination of $35 is greater than the existing optimumbid combination of $30, this becomes the new optimum bid combination.(Had bidder4 only bid $20, as in step 306 the bid combination would notbe accepted. However, this step can be changed for example so that thebid would have been accepted, for example because a first bidder,bidder1, was in the new proposed combination.) When the auction closesat Monday noon, the optimum bid combination can be published on thewebsite.

The optimization program thus permits the seller to receive maximumvalue (whether monetary or not, such as points for a game).

FIG. 8 shows a further embodiment of the present invention that are bothduration and consumption based. Weightings may be applied to permit forexample, secondary, tertiary and further options to be sold togetherwith the time. For example, in web advertising, the present inventioncan be used to sell advertising based on both time and the number ofclicks generated by the website.

For example, in an auction, bidder1 is seeking to buy 10,000 impressionsof advertising from 10 am to 11 am on a website and bids$0.02/impression for a ten minute interval from 10:00 am to 10:10 am.However, the website typically receives 30,000 impressions during thattime. Further bids for the same time may then be accepted, so thatbidder1 bidding to place an ad from 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm for 5,000impressions bidding $0.01/impression could have the bid accepted as asecondary option. Thus when bidder1's impression limit is met, thebidder1 ad can be removed and bidder2's bid shown.

For example, line 210 can represent the winners for the time intervals,based for example also on price per impression and number ofimpressions. Thus, someone who bids $0.02/per impression for a ten am to10:07 time interval for 10,000 impressions could be assigned that timeinterval over someone who bids $0.025/impression for 10:00 am to 10:10interval for 5000 impressions, based on a weighting for the number ofimpressions.

The bids can specify a fulfillment option of primary spot only, or allowfor placement in a non-primary spot, for example after someone else'simpressions have been met.

Weightings also can be applied by the buyer, for example price perimpression and price for click through.

If the bids permit secondary placement, the non-primary bidder can beassigned to the secondary spot. Thus, if the bids are selected on priceper impression, the 10:00 am to 10:10 am time interval would be filledby the $0.025 bidder, and then after 5000 impressions have been met, the$0.02 bidder's ad would be placed on the web page, as indicatedschematically in line 220. tertiary and further bids can be placed atlines 230, 240.

As time expires on the website, the last bid being fulfilled withimpressions may be only partially complete. In this case only thepartial product/service is recorded and billed, so that for example ifat the end of 10:07 only 8,999 of the 10,000 impressions have beenfulfilled, the bidder is charged only for those impressions.

This embodiment of the present invention advantageously permits furtherweightings such as price per click to be applied as well.

Another simplified example of a duration and consumption basedembodiment would be selling basketball time based on monetary value aswell as winning score level. A bidder could submit a bid for abasketball game from 1 pm to 2 pm with the winning score level set to 10points. A secondary bidder might bid a lesser amount for the same timefor a game to 20 points, but would be able to show up from 1 pm to 2 pm,and if the winning bidder's game ended early, say at 1:15, the secondarybidder would get to the court for the remaining time.

FIG. 9 shows a representation of rules applied to the time-basedinventory being sold, so that for example inventory can be sold indifferent ways at different times.

For example, the dots can represent tbi, for example radio advertisingintervals. A number of the intervals can be sold via a sales force, butif not sold within two weeks prior to auction close, the intervals areplaced on a website for sale at a certain price. If not sold within oneweek prior to auction close, the unsold intervals can be placed atauction on a website. The rules can be associated with each intervalindividually, or as a group.

Examples of Rules can be that during the life of the rule, thedesignated inventory may:

. . . only be sold by the telesales team

. . . will be sold at auction with a $100 minimum bid.

. . . will only be sold together as a block

. . . will be sold at a 10% discount

. . . will be marketed by an online advertising campaign

. . . will only be available via the web channel at a fixed price

. . . will only be sold to preferred buyers

The following are three examples showing advantages of the presentinvention.

EXAMPLES Example 1 Basketball Courts in NYC

Steve Jones is the facilities maintenance supervisor for District 3 inManhattan. District 3 is made up of 12 schools on the Upper West Side,including 4 middle schools and 3 high schools. Steve is constantlyfielding queries from individuals and various organizations about usingthe gyms in the District 3 schools during off hours, especially in thewinter months. Apparently, there is a significant shortage of indoorbasketball courts in NYC, and there is strong competition among adultand youth leagues for court time.

Steve wants to make the gyms available but managing access and securityissues makes it a real headache. There are costs associated with havingsecurity on call, electricity, oversight, liability and janitorial.Steve has been given discretion by his higher-ups to manage the use ofthe facilities any way he sees fit, so he decides to use the presentinvention to manage gym usage and earn revenue.

Steve goes to www.rbidr.com, a website according to the presentinvention, and establishes a seller profile. In his profile, hedescribes the district, the school locations, and posts a few picturesof the basketball courts. For each court, he creates a timeline. Hedecides he will try rbidr.com for 1 month, so the timeline for eachcourt is made to last a month. Steve blocks out the time that school isin session, and the times of day the courts will not be available to thegeneral public.

Rbidr offers Steve a variety of seller tools that he considers. First,he sets up his profile and timeline, and Steve is informed that he cancreate an association, or network, of the timelines representing thegyms in his district. This gives him the ability to designate the gymsas ‘equivalent’ to one-another. Anyone seeking to purchase gym time isbuying time from the entire network, not from a specific location.Because all the gyms in Steve's district are within 2 miles ofeach-other, Steve assumes that buyers will not care which specific gymthey are ‘leasing’, and that rbidr can manage availability and assignbuyers in the most efficient manner possible.

The rbidr seller interface then asks Steve whether he wants to definespecific intervals of time to be sold (e.g. 1 hour blocks), or wouldrather leave the timelines ‘open’ and apply rbidr's optimization methoddescribed above in combination with an auction sales method. Stevedecides that he will sell 1 hour blocks of time at a fixed price onweekday evenings and Saturday afternoons, but use rbidr's optimizationmethod and auctions all day on Sundays.

Steve designates the preferred method of payment as credit card orpaypal since he does not want to deal with cash. Each buyer will receivea confirmation code against which Steve, or his designatedrepresentatives, can make sure the gym time has been reserved andpaid-for properly. Rbidr allows Steve to customize the confirmationcodes to make the process more manageable. Steve decides that theconfirm codes will include the school name, the date & time purchasedand a unique identifier. (e.g. ‘PS191010707xKr3r45’)

The rbidr system has a built-in feedback system which will solicitfeedback from both buyer and seller at the end of each transaction.Steve decides to forego any in-site marketing such as banners andpromotions. He figures that people who want to use gym time in Manhattanwill know how to search by category and/or keywords. He also decides notto pay additional premiums and have his listings promoted with boldtype, colorful backgrounds, etc.

After devoting real effort into entering all the data and setting up thegyms and timelines in the manner desired, Steve is ready to make hisnetwork of timelines live. Rbidr.com charges Steve a listing fee basedon the number of timelines he has set-up and the number of add-onfeatures he has selected.

Ernie Smith has been playing basketball every Sunday morning in PS6 inDistrict 3 for seven years. Ernie sees Steve's website in a searchengine and clicks the link and is brought to a login page. He enters theusername and creates a password, and he sees Steve's timeline listings.Ernie realizes that not only will he have to win an auction to gain gymtime, but that he won't even know which specific gym it will be inDistrict 3 until he wins.

Ernie views the timeline network zooms in on the calendar for followingSunday. He sees that there is 1 bid for the 9-11 am time interval. Sincethere are 7 gyms available, Ernie knows that until more of the bidderscome to rbidr.com and place bids, he will be able to secure gym timevery cheaply. Ernie sees that the auction for next Sunday closes atexactly 11 pm on Wednesday evening, roughly 4 days before he will usethe gym and roughly 7 days from now. Ernie selects a feature that letshim track the auctions in this timeline network in his profile, and alsosets up an alert to come back and check out the situation before theauction closes.

Two days later, Ernie logs into rbidr.com again and accesses Steve'stimeline network to see if there has been any more bid activity. Thereare now 6 bids that overlap with Ernie's desired 9-11 am time interval.He can see that the bid amounts are low, and that he could easily win ainterval for as little as $50. Ernie figures he can take up a collectionfrom his friends once a week, and easily raise as much as a $100 if hehad to. Ernie decides to put in a bid.

Because Steve has set up the network to use optimization method andauctions, Ernie has complete flexibility to choose the begin and endtime for his desired ‘lease’ of gym time. He chooses exactly 9 am to 11am and, based on the fact that the existing bids range from $10 to$20/hr (the system calculates and displays the rate per hour), Ernieplaces a $25/hr bid ($50 total). The system informs him that he ispresently a winning bidder and that if circumstances change, he will beinformed by email notification. (The system also allows SMS alerts.)

The system asks Ernie to create a profile and designate credit cardinformation. He is given the option to change the system generatedusername and password to one that is more customized to his liking.

Two days before the auction is designated to close, Ernie receives thesystem alert, but decides not to log-in again. He figures if he isknocked out of a winning position, the system will notify him, and thatotherwise, he will log-in on Wednesday night at 10 pm to review thesituation. On Wednesday Ernie accesses rbidr. Ernie sees that there hasbeen some more bid activity and that his bid is presently in 5^(th)place. If nothing changes, he will gain access to one of the 7 availablegyms. Ernie doesn't feel to secure about the situation, and decides toup his bid by $10/hr to solidify his situation. At 11 pm, Ernie isinformed that he has won a 9 am to 11 am time interval for the followingSunday. His credit card is automatically charged the $70 that Ernie bid.The system sends Ernie an email and updates his profile include thewinning bid information. He is give the school name and location of thegym he has leased and a confirmation code according to the conventionestablished by Steve.

On Sunday, Ernie and his friends show up at the designated school readyto play. They show the security guard the confirmation code, and are letinto the gym. Steve had provided the security guard with the scheduleand all the codes the day before. Ernie and friends play for two hours,and then leave the gym. Another group shows up at 11 am. That night,Ernie logs back in to rbidr, puts in some feedback regarding thecondition of the gym and the rbidr experience. For his part, Steve getsfeedback from the security guard about the cooperation levels andcleanliness of the winning bidders and offers his own feedback.

Steve checks in on rbidr once a day to see how things are progressing.Through one simple interface he can see all the historical and futureschedules. He can also see how much revenue has been earned and runreports on which days of the week and/or which times of the day are mostlucrative. He also has the opportunity to see the price points he isachieving on Sundays as compared to the rest of the week. All of thisdata lets Steve manage price points and other data points in ways thatmake sense. Steve can also see all the feedback on how the overallsystem is running and make adjustments accordingly.

Example 2 Truck Leasing

The Seller is a B2B truck leasing company and it has systems that:

a) have GPS devices connected to the Internet in every truckb) a scheduler that assigns trucks to jobsc) sophisticated communications network that keeps a central hub inconstant communication with the trucks

The company has software that estimates load times, takes intoconsideration load weight, drive times, fuel costs, etc.

The company has a fleet of 200 large trucks is leases nationwide for B2Bhauling services. It has a very wide customer base, but has to keeptight control over its fleet because fuel costs and competition areeroding its margin.

In any given week or month, Company inevitably has cancellations andother factors that leave it less than 100% capacity. Additionally, thereare segments of the marketplace where Company suspects its pricepointsare too low. Customers have over-leveraged relationships and thesales/marketing department has overestimated the competition.

Company makes a deal with rbidr to assist in selling surplus and also toprovide some sanity to its pricepoints. Data from the scheduling systemfills up each timeline, with availability dynamically defined by holesin the schedule. As dates are pumped into the scheduling system from themarket department, rbidr's software updates with availability timeconstantly changing for each truck. Each timeline also includesintegration with GPS mapping software, so the timeline description notonly describes the capacity and specs of the truck, but also showsexactly where the truck is at any given moment. The scheduling data alsoshows where the truck is expected to be with each job.

Based on the data available to it, rbidr is able to offer a truck'savailability as well as a geographical range it must be within when it‘ends’ the auctioned job. In this way, the truck can still be availableto make it to the next destination on the scheduler. The range of usageis dynamically determined by data from the scheduler and the GPS mappingsoftware, and is visually represented by a colored arc or band on themap.

Company launches its rbidr custom version within www.company.com. Itinforms all of its customers of the new service to sell surplus time,and also conducts are market campaign towards what it feels arepotential audiences. Company also intentionally leaves additionalintervals open—that might have ordinarily sold at proscribedprice-points, and keeps track of them to see what the auctions fetch.

Because of the new software system, Company tells its marketingdepartment to stop marketing efforts for open intervals 2 weeks. Companysystems cause rbidr to automatically ‘open’ auctions for unsoldintervals exactly 2 weeks before the rental is to occur. Based on itsexperience, Company decides to close the auctions 5 days before thelease, giving buyers enough time to arrange for alternativeapproaches/deal with the consequences should they fail to win the bid.Company also sets a minimum bid, which might also be dynamicallycalculated based on data available. They will obviously not want to losemoney on the transaction, so the minimum bid might be the break-evenpoint, or slightly above.

Company requires that all bidders have an open account with them,perhaps extending credit to preferred customers. They also use ausername and password paradigm so they can control who they are dealingwith.

Buyer's Perspective: Two Guys department store is a 5 store chain inGeorgia and S. Carolina. Two Guys has used Company to move product fromits main warehouse to the stores, and occasionally to move productbetween stores. They have 2 trucks of their own, but occasionallycircumstances arise where they need more hauling capability.

Two Guys goes to Company.com to see if they can arrange for additionalhauling capacity. Based on an intense schedule of deliveries, they needtrucks to pick up merchandise at their warehouse and bring them to thestores once per day for seven straight days. They work out a schedule oftheir needs, and then plug the parameters into the such criteria. Theyfind timeintervals of availability on company.com/rbidr and bid againstothers for the right to lease the trucks.

When Two Guys wins the bid, rbidr feeds the scheduling software just asif the transaction was a conventionally sold and scheduled by company.The truck shows up and the designated time and provides the servicesintended. The Two Guys' account w/Company pays for the transaction.

Example 3 Online Advertising

Earl is a publisher of a bowling enthusiast's website:www.bowlingiscool.com. On his site he has bowling news, a blog,instructional video clips, FAQ's and message boards covering all topicsrelated to professional and amateur bowling. Earl also has a smallonline store where he sells wrist grips, shoes, socks, balls, wax and ahost of other bowling equipment. Until recently, Earl was earningadditional revenue by having bowlingiscool.com participate in an onlineadvertising network. The network signed-up hundreds of modestly popular,but highly focused, websites ('publishers') and then sold banneradvertising on the sites to willing advertisers. The network gave toolsto the advertisers to build and manage campaigns within the network, andcharged fees based on overall impressions (the number of times a bannerappears) or click-through rates (the number of times a user clicks-onthe banner). At a high level, the network assured Earl that theadvertisers in the network were of a certain quality, but Earl wouldnever actually know in advance who was advertising on his site. Inexchange for the service, which included the technical delivery of theads, the network was taking more than 50% of the fees paid by theadvertisers. Bowlingiscool.com is too small a venture for Earl to dealwith selling and serving banner advertising on his own, but he also wasunhappy with the downstream and somewhat powerless position of being asmall publisher on a large network. He also thought that advertising onbowlingiscool.com was probably pretty valuable to a select group ofmerchants because of its differentiated audience, and that some of thatvalue was lost by the leveling effect of the network.

Earl decides that he wants to try the online advertising capabilities ofrbidr.com. He navigates to www.rbidr.com and establishes a sellerprofile. After reading how it works, he realizes that rbidr.com employsa totally different process for selling online advertising than thenetworks. The rbidr.com wizard walks him through establishing‘timelines’ that correspond to specific pages on his site on which heintends to sell advertising. It also has him provide general backgroundand information regarding bowlingisfun.com. Based on usage statisticsEarl has from his hosting company, Earl decides that he will start bysetting up timelines that relate to 3 pages: the Home page, his blogpage, and the ‘Improve Your Game’ forum, the most popular of the messageboards. The wizard has him describe the content on these pages indetail, as well as go over the anticipated traffic and demographics.Earl also specifies where the banner will be placed on the page, thedimensions, and any technical limitations. By the time he is finished,Earl has established 3 distinct timelines, which he names individuallyaccording to the corresponding page. He also links the timelinestogether as a ‘network’ and gives the network the name of his site:bowlingisfun.com.

In terms of establishing how the three timelines are to be sold, Earl isgiven a myriad of options to choose from. He can make the three pagesequivalent, which will mean a successful buyer might have his/her bannerdisplayed on any one of the three pages. He can ensure they aredistinct, so that a buyer knows exactly the page where the banner willappear. Earl can turn on additional features such as rbidr'soptimization method, which will allow open-ended bidding (not specificintervals defined in advance), and persistent campaigns, which allowsadvertisers to present a series of banners to a single user as the usernavigates from page to page. Earl can also choose whether to review allbanners himself, or to have rbidr review them for him based on rules andqualifications he sets. (For example, Earl certainly does not want anyvulgarity or sexually explicit materials, nor does he want competitionfrom those selling certain types of bowling accessories.)

Once Earl establishes the parameters set out by the wizard, includingother considerations in addition to the ones listed above, he thenpublishes the timelines and makes them ‘live’. As part of the purchaseprocess, successful buyers upload the banners to be displayed in fileformats pre-designated by Earl and rbidr. The file goes through thedesired quality assurance process, and then—once cleared, is placed intoa production database for ultimate delivery. The rbidr system thenserves ads based on the schedule determined by the commerce activities.Acknowledgement and reconciliation occur in automated fashion so thatEarl and all successful purchasers can see what actually occurred.

Earl understands that selling online advertising includes anotherdimension that makes it unique from other tbi. With online advertising,assuming there is technical capability, a buyer can certainly place anad on a website at a proscribed time of day—but this assumes that thereis someone requesting the page in the first place. The added dimensionhere is the number of users requesting pages (impressions) of thepublisher website. In other words, the home page of bowlingisfun.commight be requested thousands of times per day. Earl is not only sellingtime blocks on each of these pages, he is selling page views in additionto time blocks. Finally, Earl has one last dimension upon which to earnrevenue, and that is the number of users who actually ‘click on’ theadvertising. So, while thousands of banners displayed within aproscribed time interval has a certain value, the prevalence of usersactually clicking on those banners has an even greater value. Rbidr.comprovides Earl with the means to unlock all that value. (Earl may alsooffer guarantees with his network to support a certain number ofimpressions per day—and if it doesn't happen, Earl may offer some rebateor discount.)

By using rbidr.com's optimization method, the system calculates thewinning ‘snapshot’ of bids for a predetermined interval of time, say 24hours. In this scenario, Earl desires that the optimization methodfactor in two distinct bids from the buyer, the impressions bid and theclick-through bid, as well as the time interval in which the advertisinghas been requested to be displayed.

For example, a prospective buyer requests 2000 impressions at animpression bid of $1, and a click-through bid of $3, between the hoursof noon and 2 pm. If he wins the bid, every time Earl shows a banner forthis bidder he makes $1. Every time a user clicks on a banner, Earlmakes an additional $3. Earl has between Noon and 2 pm to display thebanners.

rbidr then takes the time intervals established by the winning bids as abaseline template to carve up the 24 hour interval so the system canassign secondary and tertiary winners as well.

For example, assume the winning bids establish the following timeintervals:

12 am-1 am1 am-5 am5 am-6:30 am6:30 am-9 am9 am-12 pm12 pm-2 pm_$1, $3, 20002 pm-3 pm3 pm-6 pm6 pm-12 am

In each case, we can assume the winners have defined impression andclick-through bids and number of impressions. Only one example is listedabove: 12 pm-2 pm_$1, $3, 2000. e.g. the winning bidder from 12 pm to 2pm will pay Earl $1 for each impression, $3 for each click-through, upto a maximum of 2000 total impressions.

For purposes of determining secondary bids—in this case the banners thatwill be displayed if and when the winning bidders allotment of intervalsare fulfilled—rbidr keeps the time interval breakdown of the winnersabove, and builds a virtual ‘wait list’ for impressions to be filledduring the designated time slice (e.g. 12 pm-2 pm). The system thenlooks to see which bidder had the next best winning bid that overlaps insome way with this timeframe. Whenever the bidding closes, rbidrpublishes a schedule that says what will happen within each timeinterval. If the impressions are sold out during a time interval, itwill move on to the secondary winner. If those impressions are sold out,or if the time that the secondary bid overlaps ends, then the systemmoves to the third bidder. However, once the time expires on theinterval defined by the winning bid (in this case, at 2 pm), the systemresets itself and begins again with the winning bid on the next timeinterval (2 pm-3 pm). In this way, the seller will always get the bestprice, and keep selling until the runs out on the interval. This shouldalso attract a wide pool of potential advertisers, with bargainsattainable depending on how many impressions actually occur.

Stan sells bowling shoes and is a prospective advertiser onbowlingisfun.com. Stan navigates to rbidr.com and find's Earl's offeringthrough the search mechanism. After looking over the pages offered, andnavigating directly to bowlingisfum.com and checking it out, Standecides that he wants to put some advertising on Earl's home page. Stanbids $0.50 per impression and $1 per click-through for 100 impressionsbetween the hours of 12 pm and 6 pm. Various tools help Stan throughthis process, and explain how its works. Stan is not obligated to makehis bid persist if he is not the winner. Staying in a secondary ortertiary position is entirely at Stan's discretion, however he mustdecide this before he enters a bid in the first place. If Stan decidesthat his bid should persist, then his content (banner) automaticallygoes through the QA process. Also, his credit cards or means of paymentis assured up-front. (However, as we will see, Stan is not chargedunless some of his banners are actually served.) While Stan is acompetitor to Earl, in that he also sells bowling shoes, Earl does notmind this kind of competition—and otherwise sees nothing wrong withStan's banners.

When the auction closes, Stan finds out he is in 6th place in the 12-2interval, with 10,000 impressions ahead of him. He finds out he is in5th place in the 2-3 interval, with 8,000 impressions ahead of him.Finally, he is in 4th place in the 3-6 interval with 11,000 impressionsahead of him.

The winning bid hierarchy on the 12 pm-2 pm interval is as follows: $1,$3, 2000 impressions (winner); $1, $2.50, 3000 impressions (secondary);$0.75, $2.50, 1000 impressions (3rd place); $0.75, $2, 1000 impressions(4^(th) place); $0.50, $1.50, 1000 impressions (5^(th) place); $0.5, $1,100 impressions (Stan).

For Stan to get any impressions during the 12 pm to 2 pm interval, 8000impressions need to be sold ahead of him. If the 8000th impressionoccurs at 1:55 pm, then Earl will only serve Stan ads for theimpressions that occur over the next 5 minutes because at 2 pm, thesystem resets and begins again with the 2 pm winner.

Stan, and all other bidders, only ultimately pay for the impressionsthat actually occur. Earl will likely want to publish bowlingisfun.comusage statistics on a daily basis to give potential advertisers a senseof how many impressions are supported during the various hours of theday. This will help them understand not only the value of what they arebidding on, but also how best to devise a bid strategy.

This example is exactly as before, but instead of bidding 0.50 & $1 for100 impressions, Stan ups his click-through bid to $4 and requests 1000impressions. He also limits the time-frame to 5 to 7 pm. Stan knows thatthis sort of bid will only get expensive if there are a lot ofclick-throughs. He won't mind paying a premium because he expects anyclick-throughs to be very valuable to Stanbowlingshoes.com. Afterplacing this bid, Stan indicates he is using the persistent campaignsfeature. The system asks that he indicate the number of banners in hiscampaign. In this case Stan has 3 distinct banners lined-up. The systemthen asks that Stan upload all three banners and indicate the order inwhich he desires them to be displayed.

Stan ends up being the secondary bidder during the 5-7 pm time intervalwith every single one of his impressions met. So far, Stan's cost is$500 (0.50×1000). With the persistent campaigns feature, Earl tracksuser sessions as they traverse bowlingisfun.com. Every time a user onthe site moves from one page on the site to another, Earl's server isaware of the movement. By requesting a persistent campaign, Stan haseffectively asked that Earl inform him (rbidr) of these movements sothat he show user's his banners in sequence. Stan hopes that he will beable to build a message to the user over a series of banners, raisingthe potential for a qualified click-through.

1. A system for selling time-based inventory comprising: a serverreceiving instructions from a seller of time-based inventory to set atotal time to be sold for a time-based inventory, the server alsoreceiving further instructions from the seller to set a sales timeinterval smaller than the total time to be sold, the server determininga plurality of time-intervals of the total time as a function of thesales time interval; the server permitting display of the plurality oftime intervals to a plurality of potential buyers of the time-basedinventory.
 2. A method for selling time-based inventory over acommunications network comprising: permitting a seller via a graphicaluser interface to define a total time to be sold for a timebased-inventory; permitting a plurality of potential buyers to define asales time interval amount smaller than or equal to the total time to besold and to submit offer prices with the sales time interval; andmaximizing a value for the total time to be sold as a function of thesubmitted offer prices.
 3. The method as recited in claim 2 furthercomprising receiving bids from the plurality of potential buyers for thetime intervals so as to define an auction.
 4. The method as recited inclaim 3 further comprising permitting the seller to set an auction closetime, the auction close time being before the start of the total time tobe sold.
 5. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein the value ismonetary value.
 6. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein thetime-based inventory has at least one associated rule defined by theseller, the time based-inventory being sold differently when the rule isapplied.
 7. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein the time-basedinventory is sold based both on duration and consumption information. 8.The method as recited in claim 2 further comprising permitting theseller submit a description of a right associated with the time-basedinventory.
 9. A system for selling time-based inventory comprising aserver receiving instructions from a seller of time-based inventory toset a total time to be sold for a time-based inventory, the server alsoreceiving further instructions from a plurality of potential buyers todefine a sales time interval smaller than or equal to the total time tobe sold and to submit offer prices associated with the sales timeinterval, the server maximizing a value for the total time to be sold asa function of the submitted offer prices.
 10. A time-based inventoryselling system comprising a server providing an interface for aplurality of sellers of time-based inventory, the server permitting afirst of the plurality of sellers to define first time intervals of afirst time-based inventory and permitting a second of the plurality ofsellers to define second time intervals of a second time-basedinventory.
 11. A graphical user interface comprising a displaypermitting a seller of time-based inventory to set a total time to besold, and to choose at least one time interval, a sale of the time-basedinventory capable of being conducted as a function of the time intervaland the total time to be sold.
 12. A graphical user interface comprisinga display permitting a seller of time-based inventory to set a totaltime to be sold, and a further display permitting a potential buyer todefine a time interval smaller than or equal to the total time to besold and to submit a bid for the time interval.